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My Christmas push is over, and I have the gift of three weeks to spend reflecting on this past year and planning the next. New Year’s Resolutions are fairly new for me. For 46 years, life revolved around husband and children, and I felt little need to set life goals and priorities. Importantly, Lev assumed so many responsibilities—business, finance, insurance, cars—and was always willing to …

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…and 18 Other Lessons Learned in Writing a Book I am a reporter by trade, a writer in the short form. I can churn out 1,000 words in my sleep. How naïve I was when I decided to write a book. I had never written in the long form. I did almost everything wrong, and those 60,000 words took three years to produce. In fact, …

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Key 12 to reclaiming joy: Be generous in sharing with others. Since October I have worked my way through the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, examining 12 keys to moving from grief to joy. These keys are not simply principles. Paul provides an order—a road map—for moving from discouragement to joy. His letter opens with his gratitude to the Philippians for their …

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My list of New Year’s Resolutions isn’t written on paper yet—in fact, I seldom make Resolutions—but they are clear in my mind. This year I am driven by the knowledge that I will have knee surgery in 11 days. What will I do during those weeks of recovery? I have pondered that question since my torn meniscus was discovered last August. Erasing my calendar for …

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I finally have my elevator pitch! Ever since I started writing 17 months ago, I have stammered when asked to describe my book. After I finished the fourth draft of the first chapter last winter, my independent editor told me it was time to get a website and start blogging, in preparation for writing my book proposal and finding a literary agent. As I began to …

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Take a close look at the labels on each of these three shelves at the Corpus Christi Barnes and Noble: Sexuality, LGBT, Family & Friends, Death/Grieving Death and Grieving, Self Score Tests Success Death and Grieving is sandwiched between Sex and Success. Does anyone think that a widow is going to get down on the floor to look for a book on death and grieving? …

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As I scanned the crowd in the Wylie Theatre lobby, looking for a place where I could eat my box lunch, an attractive blonde on a nearby bench made eye contact and gestured that I could squeeze in beside her. I’m not good at striking up conversations with strangers, but we were both attending the DFW Writers Conference, so there were natural conversation starters. While …

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All to establish a brand, build a platform & get an agent to look at you When I started writing my book, Reclaiming Joy: A Primer for Widows, in summer 2014, I never guessed that I would need to engage in so much self-promotion just to get a literary agent and a publisher to take a look at my manuscript. Had I known then what …

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One year ago, I sat down at my old desk in the bedroom—not the one where I do all my “Lev work”—and I started to write a book. Being an “author” was never my ambition. While I have been putting words on paper most of my life (and since 1982, on the computer screen), I never considered writing in the long form. I am a …